Listen to Robert Emmerich introduce The Big Apple, a hit song from 1937. Music written by Bob and performed by Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven with Bob on piano. Lyrics written by Buddy Bernier and sung by Edythe Wright. Audio provided by Dorothy Emmerich.

Molotes ("cigars") is popular dish of Oaxaca, Mexico, consisting of corn masa for tortillas and usually filled with chorizo and potato. The antojito (appetizer or snack) slowly entered the menus of Mexican restaurants in the United States in the 1990s and 2000s.

Glossary - Mexican food recipes, cooking termsMolotes Corn masa for tortillas, sometimes with a little wheat flour added, is mixed with some lard, rolled into small oblongs, filled and pressed into oblong shaped little packages which are then fried until golden and crisp.

Oaxacan FoodsMolotes - are a very special “holiday street food”, found in Oaxaca during Guelaguetza, Easter, and Christmas times. It is made with a disk of fresh masa then filled with a Chorizo and Potato filling, fried, then topped with Black Bean Puree, Queso Fresco and garnished with sliced radishes.

Traditional Foods of PueblaMolotes—small cornmeal-and-cheese-based “biscuits” with a variety of stuffings, such as pig brains, macerated meat, potatoes with pork sausage, squash flowers, or corn-smut fungus

El Restaurante MexicanoMolotes de Tinga Poblana
Makes 8 servings
(...)
The molotes
2-1/2 lbs. Maseca
3-1/2 c. warm water
Combine ingredients.
Using a tortilla maker, press out small rounds with 2 ounces of the masa mixture. Fill with a rounded tablespoon of the filling. Seal the edges tightly.

Instructions
Mix together the corn dough, cheese, baking powder and lard.
To make the picadillo, fry the ground pork with the onion, almonds raisins and the candied citron.
Make a thick tortilla with the corn dough.
Fill it with the picadillo and roll it up to form the molote.
Wrap up the molotes in corn husks and steam.
Take off the husks and fry.

Google BooksThe Food and Drink of Mexico
by George C. Booth
Los Angeles, CA: Ward Ritchie Press
1964
Pg. 149:
In Vera Cruz one tortilla is filled, rolled like a cigar and called a molote, and in Nogales the rolled, meat-filled snack staggers under the name of chimichanga.

Fillings are as individual as the Mexican character. Molotes are stuffed with fried banana while a national favorite is a filling of chopped calf brains flavored with nutmeg.

25 October 1995, New York (NY) Times, “Feast for the Dead Celebrates Life” by Elaine Louie, pg. C3:
Ms. Martinez is cooking food from Oaxaca, in honor of the Mixe (pronounced MEE-heh) tribe, who cultivate pasilla chiles. There will be two-inch-long molotes, or turnovers, with crisp corn crusts enfolding minced chorizos and potatoes, and an earthy white bean soup flavored with toasted pumpkin seeds and tiny dried shrimp.

Google BooksFrommer’s Mexico ‘94 on $45 a Day
by Marita Adair
New York, NY: Prentice Hall
1993
Pg. 505:
Besides zacahuil, be sure to try delicious molotes, a small football-shaped creation fried masa that’s served as an appetizer.

Frommer’s Mexico
by Marita Adair
New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company
1996
Pg. ?:
Here you can try cemitas (the local name for a sandwich made with a special delicious bread), chanclas (a sandwich covered in a delicious red pepper sauce), extraordinarily good mixiotes and mole poblano, plus a full range of meal-size appetizers such as molotes, which in Puebla is a deep-fried flour wrapper stuffed with cheese, potatoes, or meat, epazote, and jalapeño pepper—it’s not picante.